St. Marco? Polo!

With a paycheck with some double pay (thank you president's day) on the way, three days off, and the desire to get out of my small little town me and a few friends hopped on our Harry Potter train to Venice. Lets just use the word perfection shall we? Getting away from work, the cold, and snow to a place where wine is the same amount of money as water, its above 45 degrees, and the most beautiful language is spoken. Perfection indeed.

If you look up the top things to do in Venice many simply say "get lost."I firmly beleive that every tourist should "get lost" in every city that they travel to, however, within two mintues of visiting Venice you will be lost and you will not find your way until you leave...hopefully. On the way of getting lost we found the most interesting parts of our adventure- shooting wine with the locals before their shifts at 10am, black squid ink pasta delicacy, many churches, and our own "Diagon Alley."

 The first night we decided to walk around town (aka get lost) and we stumbled upon our soon to be favorite little restaurant. What I have learned about traveling with people and what Julia Child says perfectly, "People who love to eat are always the best people." So true, but this is especially true for Venice, Italy. There are a couple sights to see, but in all honestly we were there to eat carbs upon carbs and drink vino. We shared two appetizers, an entree, two desserts (tiramasu and creme brulee my two desserts I could live off of), two bottles of wine, and great conversation. The Italians sure know how to do it- they sit together, drink, eat lesurely (and a lot), talk for hours and call it dinner. I'm sold. I was told to get a certain dish by many of my friends who had previously been to Venice, I was all ready to chicken out, asked the waiter for his personal fav, and what does he point to? This dish. And what is this dish? The Venetian delicacy of black squid ink pasta. With an almost finished plate, teeth dyed black, and pictures of the evidence I can say that it was lovely, but a delicacy I will treasure once and once only.


The next day we decided to get lost once again and try and make it to St. Marco's Basilica. On the way we stopped in a hole in the wall for some necessary cappuccinos, met a lovely Italian with his dog Judith (this will come up later in our story), and learned "grazie" and "prego" from a sweet lady who spoke no english and us who spoke no italian. Thrown outside of our comfort zones at its finest. We then stumbled upon a  broom closet of a restaurant where we saw a line of locals. What was the line for at 10am you may ask? The vino. These were 60 cent glasses of cold red wine that the locals will (very quickly) down before heading to work (aka an eye opener).  Well of course we had to join them!

After getting lost for a couple of hours which included throwing a map on the ground and pressing on, putting ourselves between two walls, getting happily distracted by merry men and their music, we finally ended up at St. Marco's  Basilica. My absoltue favorite moment happened about two minutes before entering the square. I had been to Venice 11 years ago with my family and for the most part I don't remember it. However, right before St. Marco there is a Bridge of Sighs (for the people crossing into the prison hence the sighs part), well 11 years later we are walking (a little bit lost lost of course and maybe a little tipsy after our eye opener and lunch of vino), we can't find the square, and right before the bridge I remember where we are from when I was there before. It was the first time I had truly remembered something from that trip so long ago after revisiting. It was a great feeling.

St. Marco's Basilica is breathtaking. I mean anything dowsed in gold will be beautiful, but we got there right at sunset so with the sun right on top of the gold. Wow. To the right of the basilica was our own Diagon Alley where we bought more vino (see a pattern going on here?) and gelato before heading to our gondola ride! The gondola was a blast- 20 euro a person and we sat seeing the city in a whole different way for 60 minutes. On the way we saw Vivaldi's, Motzart's, and Marco Polo's home. My European music teacher would be so proud.

After dinner, more vino, and getting lost we started to head home. Who did we see right before the train station? Judith! Circle of life right there.





The last day we headed to the Rialto Bridge for some shopping (with four girls and one boy, the poor guy was overruled). A capaccino, vino, a Pinocchio style mask, and a purse later we head seen Rialto and all its shopping. So  much to see it all especially since it was the day after Karnival, so there were MANY masks.

With great company, the sense of adventure, and the love of vino and carbs the trip to Venice was fantastic. And to think this was weekend- I'm forever grateful!



Venice. Italy. Europe,

To drinking at 10am, planking between walls, standing up in gondolas, getting lost in a foreign city, Oscar Wilde puts it perfectly. This 13 month adventure is teaching me to not only exist, but to instead live.